NATURAL SELECTION 



ledge of the internal constitution of bodies analogous to that 

 which we obtain by the spectroscope ; and that their visual 

 organs do possess some powers which ours do not, is indicated 

 by the extraordinary crystalline rods radiating from the optic 

 ganglion to the facets of the compound eye, which rods vary 

 in form and thickness in different parts of their length, and 

 possess distinctive characters in each group of insects. This 

 complex apparatus, so different from anything in the eyes of 

 vertebrates, may subserve some function quite inconceivable 

 by us, as well as that which we know as vision. There is 

 reason to believe that insects appreciate sounds of extreme 

 delicacy, and it is supposed that certain minute organs, plenti- 

 fully supplied with nerves, and situated in the subcostal vein 

 of the wing in most insects, are the organs of hearing. But 

 besides these, the Orthoptera (such as grasshoppers, etc.) have 

 what are supposed to be ears on their fore legs, and Mr. 

 Lowne believes that the little stalked balls, which are the 

 sole remnants of the hind wings in flies, are also organs of 

 hearing or of some analogous sense. In flies, too, the third 

 joint of the antennae contains thousands of nerve-fibres, which 

 terminate in small open cells, and this Mr. Lowne believes to 

 be the organ of smell, or of some other, perhaps new, sense. 

 It is quite evident, therefore, that insects may possess senses 

 which give them a knowledge of that which we can never 

 perceive, and enable them to perform acts which to us are 

 incomprehensible. In the midst of this complete ignorance 

 of their faculties and inner nature, is it wise for us to judge 

 so boldly of their powers by a comparison with our own ? 

 How can we pretend to fathom the profound mystery of their 

 mental nature, and decide what, and how much, they can 

 perceive or remember, reason or reflect ! To leap at one 

 bound from our own consciousness to that of an insect's is as 

 unreasonable and absurd as if, with a pretty good knowledge 

 of the multiplication table, we were to go straight to the 

 study of the calculus of functions, or as if our comparative 

 anatomists should pass from the study of man's bony structure 

 to that of the fish, and, without any knowledge of the 

 numerous intermediate forms, were to attempt to determine 

 the homologies between these distant types of vertebrata. 

 In such a case would not error be inevitable, and would not 



